And the Quills quivered

Date: March 17 2013

Melbourne's journalistic community celebrated its night of nights on Friday, with the annual Quills given some added cachet this year with the appearance of a big-name Hollywood star, Rachel Griffiths - who managed to knock the room sideways with a scorching speech on sexism in the media business.

Griffiths made it clear early on this wouldn't be a speech for the faint-hearted.

''Anyone who knows me knows that my favourite word is f---,'' she declared.

She then opened fire on male domination of the senior echelons of the industry. ''The Vatican Curia looks only marginally worse.''

There were jokes about Nine's boardroom being ''a private space to compare their dicks''.

And there was this advice for Gina Rinehart: ''Please take Andrew [Bolt] to lunch and eat him.'' That fat joke at Rinehart's expense somewhat diluted Griffiths closing argument: ''Women are held to a different standard of scrutiny. Their hair, their voice, their clothes, their reproductive choices, their emotionality, their ex-boyfriends and their sex lives. Whereas men get a free pass.''

Verdict from the Quills crowd? Many loved it, some were aghast.

Legend of the media receives her due

Still at the Quills: Griffiths' speech was delivered in the context of her presenting the Melbourne Press Club's Lifetime Achievement Award to magazine legend Dulcie Boling - whom Griffiths (right, with Mandy McElhinney playing Woman's Day editor Nene King) portrays in the ABC's forthcoming Paper Giants: Magazine Wars.

Boling stood stoically on stage as the actor made her remarks - her career is ''a miracle'', Griffiths said - and then Boling shared her own thoughts on her groundbreaking life in publishing.

''The men weren't all that hard, once you'd beaten them over the head a few times,'' joked the woman who once ran Rupert Murdoch's magazine empire. ''That's when I specialised my stare - the long, cold stare. They'd be carrying on and they'd look around and they'd catch the stare and you could see them thinking, 'Oh, God'.'' Murdoch, she said, was misunderstood. ''So different to what people think of him.''

Of her glory days as editor of the million-selling New Idea, Boling said wistfully: ''They were the golden years for so many of us.'' And of being a feminist, she said: ''You don't have to go on banging the drum. Just do it.''

At 76, Boling remains busy - she is on the board of directors of the Seven Network.

Conventional wisdom feels need for change

With Sydney's convention centre shutting down at year's end pending a Darling Harbour revamp, Melbourne should have the inside running on the lucrative international convention and exhibition business in Australia.

Last December, Melbourne Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO Karen Bolinger flagged a change in strategy - closing the bureau's Hong Kong office and ditching its long-standing US sales reps in favour of a new company, Los Angeles-based Myriad Marketing.

Now comes word of what sounds like a ripper gig helping drive Melbourne's push for business in the prized US market: Myriad is advertising for a MICE director - that's Meeting, Incentive, Convention, Exhibition - based in Manhattan, ''with benefits''. The ad includes lots of corporate gobbledegook - things like ''Align market efforts with Melbourne headquarters to ensure synergy and optimise returns''. All of which we think translates as follows: More cashed-up Yanks by the Yarra, please.

CNN draws captive audience to our prisons

When selling Melbourne to the world there is much to brag about - but one thing that hadn't occurred to us as a major marketing point for foreign visitors is the Old Melbourne Gaol. It's a fascinating and historic landmark for locals, of course, but it was a surprise to find this particular city icon attracting top billing from CNN in a story headlined: ''Ten prisons now open to travellers.'' The Russell Street site was listed second - with the hanging of Ned Kelly duly noted, naturally - on a list topped by San Francisco's Alcatraz, and also including South Africa's notorious Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists were jailed. Port Arthur also gets a nod - though CNN oddly fails to mention that the Tasmanian destination has another more recent and traumatic claim on Australian memories.